


Lullaby of Woe

by ScholarForChrist



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Friendship, Geralt is smug, Humor, Jaskier is annoyed, Villagers are traumatized, brotherly teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25129954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScholarForChrist/pseuds/ScholarForChrist
Summary: "It always started the same. Geralt didn’t even look up. He wasn’t about to beat the town into submission with his fists or blades. He’d spent enough nights under the stars that one more wouldn’t do him any harm should these men throw him out of their town, but Jaskier had so been looking forward to a cozy fire and some good food. It would be a shame to let him down after they’d spent the past two weeks camping under damp skies."Geralt uses the shared childhood trauma of several villagers to stop a fight before it starts and Jaskier is not amused.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





	Lullaby of Woe

**Author's Note:**

> The nice long Geralt whump fic I've promised is in the last stages of editing and will begin posting soon, hopefully! This is to tide you lovely people over. ;) 
> 
> I highly recommend listening to Lullaby of Woe before/during reading. My fav versions are by Ashley Serena (captures the creep factor of the song) and Peter Hollens (a good base for Geralt's 'singing' voice)

The tavern was a noisy, smoky place, the regular drinkers assembled for the night and a few reluctantly taking their places only a table away from where Geralt sat, with his back to a wall in the far corner. He was mostly concealed in the shadows, hood pulled over his head for added cover. This far north it was easier to pretend he was some secretive traveler, a criminal even, rather than show his true colors and get thrown out for being sub-human devil spawn. Even criminals had coin. A witcher’s coin, however, in a town this bigoted, would be seen as cursed and he’d be denied any and every service outright.

That was why it was Jaskier out making their purchases before the market closed and Jaskier who had secured them a room for the night. It didn’t matter that he was using Geralt’s coin for most of it. In the bard’s hands they didn’t even bat an eye at it, almost as if there wasn’t a difference. Funny how that worked.

But it was beginning to look like they wouldn’t get their room after all. Several men were muttering and glancing Geralt’s direction and it wouldn’t take much more than a ducked head and a wavering of firelight for them to catch the unnatural color of his eyes or the pallor of his skin. Sure enough, three men stood and made their way between the tables, gathering their fellows as they went until a group of about seven stood around him, penning him in to the shadowed corner.

“Hey, witcher! You’re not wanted here.”

It always started the same. Geralt didn’t even look up. He wasn’t about to beat the town into submission with his fists or blades. He’d spent enough nights under the stars that one more wouldn’t do him any harm should these men throw him out of their town, but Jaskier had so been looking forward to a cozy fire and some good food. It would be a shame to let him down after they’d spent the past two weeks camping under damp skies. 

“Are you deaf, devil? We want you out of he-“

The lilting tune Geralt hummed stopped him short and the men grew still and silent as the witcher’s low tone carried the melody… absently, casually, like he wasn’t even thinking about it any more than he was thinking of the ale that swirled in the tankard he held. The song was one he knew these men had heard from their cradles, one of the superstitious nursery rhymes that taught children to obey through fear rather than respect. Still, such things had their uses and when the ringleader of the men watching him stepped forward, his voice shaking almost inaudibly as he said, “Get out. Now. Don’t make us force you,” Geralt just let a slow smile bare his teeth, fixed a glinting golden gaze on them and intoned, “… he’ll chop and slice you, cut and dice you, eat… you… whole…” along with the tune.

The men around him froze, their collective childhood trauma leaping to the forefront of their minds and Geralt allowed himself a low chuckle as the men scrambled back with the scrape and groan of benches and stools being moved.

* * *

Jaskier returned to a bizarre sight that drew both amusement and exasperation to his mind. He stepped through the tavern doorway to find that, not unlike a fishing boat caught in a storm, the room was unbalanced to an extreme. The boisterous laughter and talk was somewhat muted but growing in volume as if it had been momentarily silenced and had to regain its strength, but it was entirely confined to the left half of the room. Tables and chairs were crammed side by side and men practically sitting in each other’s laps just to make space for each other while the right half of the room was utterly empty save for a single hooded figure in the far corner.

With a deep sigh, Jaskier approached, dumping his purchases on the bench across from Geralt as he sat.

“Geralt.”

The witcher smirked.

“Did you sing again?”

The smirk only widened as Geralt took another swig from his tankard and Jaskier put on his very best scolding tone.

“We _have_ talked about this. Every time you do this, it metaphorically _murders_ one of my heartfelt performances I gave for the sake of warming the public’s hearts to you.” He glanced over at the men who were eying him with equal suspicion as they did his hooded companion. “Not to mention they’ll probably give us ice water for our baths tonight. Thanks _ever_ so much for that.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” came the witcher’s response, distinctly amused and insufferably smug. A jug of ale thumped down in front of him and Jaskier tore his attention from the glowers behind him and noted with surprise the wide array of food and drink laid out on the table. He took the jug from Geralt, pouring himself a drink because he was never one to let a windfall go to waste, but as he gathered food onto his plate, he continued to berate the witcher.

“You need to decide, Geralt, if you’d rather be loved or feared. The two do rather tend to cancel each other out, I find, and I take deep and painful offense to my work being erased by its intended recipient.”

Geralt offered him a half-smile and an eloquent “hmm” but before Jaskier could finish his mouthful of savory meat, the witcher spoke, careful gaze monitoring the tavern’s occupants over Jaskier’s shoulder.

“Some people are too far gone to learn to love in a single day. It’s safer to be feared this far north.” A tilt of his head and a humorous quirk of the pale brows and he added, “And if it helps at all, they also said that your songs have only spread this far because you sing them so loudly and badly that every man who hears can’t help but remember.”

Jaskier’s fork clattered against the table, his mouth falling open in shock and Geralt nodded.

“Singularly awful, they said.” The armored shoulders lifted in a brief shrug and Geralt lifted his tankard again, his deep voice mumbled behind the cups reverberation. “Turns out they don’t like my singing much either.”

The short laugh that fell from Jaskier’s lips was quickly buried under a heartfelt exclamation of, “Can we _please_ head south tomorrow? This place is _genuinely_ irredeemable, Geralt, and that’s coming from an idealistic poet who clings to hope with every breath of his lungs.” He turned to shout over his shoulder at the prejudiced idiots across the room, “And their roast is over-cooked and under-seasoned!”

With the way the bartender glowered at him, took a few steps forward, then paled significantly and went back to his work, Jaskier suspected an argument had been swiftly and effectively slain with a single glare from the witcher, but any sign of that stern expression was gone when Jaskier turned back to his meal.

* * *

“We’ll leave at first light,” Geralt promised, eager to get away from the judging stares and muttered curses as much as the bard was. They ate their fill, packing a little of the less perishable items away in Jaskier’s bags as provisions for the road before they went to take their leave. The second Geralt shifted, stood, and took up his sword case, there was a mass shuffling as every other man in the room either got to his feet defensively or else hunched low over his own meal in the hopes of being overlooked. Geralt ignored them, but a breath gusted from the bard as Jaskier turned to gesture grandly at the room.

“ _Thank_ you _all_ for being such fine and _gracious_ hosts!” He turned to the stairs, the word “Unbelievable…” muttered under his breath and Geralt just gave the men a polite nod, taking up the rear and following Jaskier to their room.

The baths were scalding, as if the innkeeper had decided to burn the evil out of the both of them and Geralt sank into his with a grim satisfaction. It wasn’t as good as when Jaskier’s songs made the whole tavern light up with cheers and claps on the back, meals given on the house, and an extra blanket laid out on the bed in winter, but not all songs could do so much and not all towns were as receptive. And for these sorts of towns, Geralt kept in reserve the words grandmothers used to quiet naughty grandchildren. _For the Witcher_ _brave and bold… Paid in coin of gold. He’ll chop you, slice you, cut and dice you, eat you whole…_

Geralt chuckled at the absurdity of it, this Lullaby of Woe, and wondered what manner of bard had composed it. The tune was haunting, like some ancient elven song, but the words were very human, a peek into the fearful, judging sentiments of the northern villages. _For the Witcher, heartless cold… paid in coin of gold. He comes, he’ll go, leave naught behind but heartache and woe…_

“Deep, deep woe…” Geralt had hardly breathed the words when an affronted splash sounded from beyond the screen that separated the two tubs in the large bath room.

“Ex _cuse_ me, but I am _trying_ to enjoy the one shining token of this town’s appreciation for your daring deeds and I would rather it not be interrupted by the reminder that _that_ song is still alive and kicking despite, and in _direct defiance_ of my attempts to smother it with some _proper_ prose and lyrical wit.” Geralt’s low chuckle only seemed to add to the bard’s offense, as he continued in a slightly higher octave, “And secondly, _sir_ , you _could_ be grumbling _my_ lyrics instead of that drivel. That song has less artistic appeal and skill than the sound of a chamber pot being emptied! So I’ll thank you not to utter a single note more in my presence!” 

Geralt smiled broadly and he considered humming a bit more, but he was sure Jaskier would either strangle him or else drown him out with his own singing and neither was conducive to a relaxing soak. Instead, he settled back, comfortable in the knowledge that whatever bard had composed those strikingly biased words, he was no match for whatever tenacious otherworldly force fueled Jaskier’s efforts. Maybe in time, even the north would come to accept reality over old wives’ tales… and if they resisted, Geralt had no doubt Jaskier would have the words to describe that unique brand of stupidity the northern villager exhibited. That or he’d beat the truth into them with his lute and the north would from then on be plagued with horror stories of The Witcher’s Feral Bard.

The thought drew little more than a huff of breath from him, but Jaskier was apparently more in tune with the witcher’s moods than Geralt had thought as his voice once more broke the silent humid calm of the bath room.

“If you are laughing at me, Geralt of bloody Rivia, I swear I will spend the entirety of tomorrow morning composing an ode to the _unfathomable_ ingratitude of white-haired-“

“I wouldn’t dare laugh at you, Jaskier,” Geralt said innocently, doing just that with the silent quirk of his lips. “But you have that song and its composer to thank for your hot bath tonight.”

There was a sloshing of water and the dulled thump on the wooden tub as Jaskier shifted, presumably to face the screen between them.

“ _You_ ,” the bard hissed, “are lucky I am too luxuriously comfortable to come over there and lecture you to your face.”

Geralt waited a beat, listening as Jaskier settled, thinking he’d won. Then he spoke, asking curiously, “With a towel?” The enraged bard noises suggested he’d narrowly avoided the unenviable experience of having a nude bard storm around the barrier to drown him where he sat. Thankfully they were both spared the embarrassment as Jaskier found another way to employ violence in making his point. A bar of soap struck the side of Geralt’s head and he turned a glare toward the edge of the screen where Jaskier glared right back, leaning as far as he could to see around the barrier without leaving the warmth of the bath. When he’d seen his lobbed weapon strike home, he nodded, satisfied, and vanished behind the screen once more.

“Pick that up and make good use of it or my next song will feature your peculiar blend of horse stench and monster guts.”

Geralt relented, content to let the bard have the last word mostly because he was impossible to live with if he didn’t. He did open his mouth with the intent to comment on Jaskier’s prowess wielding the fearsome bar of soap as a deadly weapon, but he was cut off immediately by deliberately loud singing and gave in to his fate, washing the grime of the road and the sting of prejudiced glares from his skin as his best friend belted lyrics that Geralt was certain were making the men downstairs wish they’d never dared insult the Witcher or his bard.


End file.
